Nature in Virtual Worlds

The present examines the relationship between women and nature in Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie (1944) from an ecofeminist perspective. Like the American South, which was affected by the presence of the industrial machine, ‘the Southern Belle’ was affected by the patriarchal mindset. The common thread between Williams and some ecofeminists lies their call for preserving nature from the dangers of deforestation and the peril of industrialization, as well as their advocacy for setting women free from various social stereotypes. Starting from Francoise D’Eaubonne’s argument about ‘Green Politics,’ the paper will delve into the intricacies of the female self, focusing on the affinities between the downtrodden Green space and the marginalization of the “handicapped” Laura. Like Green politics, which focuses on creating an egalitarian society, The Glass Menagerie invites the audience to ponder over a better representation of women with special needs. In the same context of calling...

AbstractHidetaka Miyazaki’s Dark Souls trilogy are video games famed for their difficulty and the dark, medievalist esthetic of the world. These stories take place in ruined worlds, and the characters who inhabit them are also ruins in their undead states. These ruined states function as metaphors for depression within these games, which is a theme felt by many of the players who have anecdotal stories of how these games provided comfort, not in spite of their dark and ruined landscapes – but because of them. Keywords: Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, Dark Souls III, depression, medievalism, ruins, undead, allegory, video gamesWhen thinking of the Dark Souls trilogy, there are many vistas in the games that invite the player to gaze at during their doomed quest. The fallen magnificence of ruined cathedrals and castles, the infamous rot of the poison swamps, and the darkened, perilous corners of graves are all locations in these games. Most of them are marked out as gothic and gloomy, with sui...

Naredba je bila jasna: „Zabranjeno je kupanje u rijeci, čak i približavanje rijeci na udaljenost manju od dvjesto metara.” Dakle, nije moglo biti mjesta ni za kakav nesporazum. Tko god prekrši naredbu, ići će pred vojni sud.Pročitao im ju je neki dan s?m bojnik. Naredio je da se okupi čitava postrojba i pročitao im je. Naredba Divizije! S tim nije bilo šale.Prošla su oko tri tjedna otkako su se utaborili s ove strane rijeke. S druge strane bili su neprijatelji, oni Drugi kako ih je većina zvala.Tri tjedna nisu radili ništa. Bilo je nemoguće da takva situacija potraje, ali zasad vlada mir.Obje obale rijeke obrasle su šumom koja se protezala duboko u unutrašnjost. Gustom šumom. U toj su se šumi utaborili i jedni i drugi.Prema njihovu saznanju oni Drugi ondje su imali dvije postrojbe. No nisu pokušavali napasti; tko zna što su naumili. S obje strane rijeke u međuvremenu su postavljene stražarnice, sakrivene na više mjesta u šumi, spremne na sve.Tri tjedna! Kako su samo uspjela proći tri t...

Over the last couple of years, differentiating between the real and the fabricated has become progressively more difficult, with recent technological innovations often being perceived as central contributors to this collective chaos. That being so, Lisa Messeri, with her book In the Land of the Unreal, attempts to provide informed insights into up-and-coming technology, as well as its potential to construct fantasy. Around 2016, she moved to Los Angeles in an effort to create an overview of its virtual reality community, which, according to her findings, is significantly influenced by the surreal presence of the Hollywood film industry. To properly showcase her research, the author divided this book into three main sections: Fantasy of Place, Fantasy of Being, and Fantasy of Representation. Each part embodies a version of reality she encountered in her interactions with LA’s virtual landscapes, simulated experiences, digital storytelling, and their creators. Essentially, Messeri’s dete...

The Finnish video game Pools (sometimes stylized as POOLS; a Tensori and UNIKAT label, 2024) is a game of the walking simulator and horror genre. It gives a first-person perspective of a labyrinth-like pool(s), with no conventional story with protagonists or antagonists. However, the sense of fear is undeniably present, which can be partly explained by the visible absence of humans and nature. We explore the so-called ‘negative presence of nature,’ which is defined as the absence of nature and its contribution to the sense of fear while playing. We attempt to explain how the absence of nature and the simulation of a “normal” yet visibly and obviously abnormal environment and surroundings, even the life/living/existing in the virtual world, contribute to a sense of uneasiness and dread. The main focus of the paper is on the Pools video game, but we also offer a comparison of Pools and Greenhouse (7D Games Studio, currently in development), especially the similarities in style and intend...

The focus of the paper is on ecocritical discourses about space in the context of the climate crisis, with regard to the different levels at which the crisis manifests, and their articulations in the visual arts. Namely, while early ecological theories, including ecocriticism, were based on humans’ connection with local ecosystems, urbanization and globalization have played a role in distancing the human from the local ecosystem in which she is embedded. Such changes also caused the separation of human from the complex chain of production and consumption of economic goods and its effect on the environment. As a result of the mentioned problem, many theorists recognized the need to reconnect the human and the environment, which would result in a better understanding of environmental processes. However, new circumstances such as the development of new technologies (e.g., GPS, Google Earth, etc.) and the ever-present climate changes required overcoming the sphere of the local and the shif...